


View Factor

by MillyVeil



Series: Ambush [3]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: BAMF Ronon, Outside View, Post-Mission, They grow 'em protective on Sateda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-14 00:08:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20182975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MillyVeil/pseuds/MillyVeil
Summary: Someone sees something he probably wasn't supposed to see, and he finds out that some secrets have guardians. An outside view of the aftermath of "Ambush".





	View Factor

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not big on original characters taking a lot of space. This is the only fic I have ever written that has one as the main character.
> 
> Originally posted 2006 on LJ.

Ben is halfway to the infirmary when he realizes he has no freaking idea what time it is. His watch is lying on the tably by his bed and he hadn't thought to look what time it was before leaving his quarters. His internal clock tells him it's late, very late, but Beckett's pain killers (the ones that aren't making even a dent in his killer headache) have been known to mess with his perception of time before, so it could be earlier. It could also be later, and the fact that he passes people in the hallway is an absolutely useless indication of time, because Atlantis never sleeps.

It's true that the lights dim late at night to provide some semblance of a circadian rhythm, and that the ever-present voices and noises that float around the hallways and labs turn soft and muted, but people still work. He finds that kind of reassuring, because for the past five years he's watched scientists pulling all-nighters at SGC, in Area 51, in a number of top-secret compounds on Earth and even some off-world. It's one of the few things that feel familiar in this strange place.

But that's where the similarities end, because Atlantis can't be compared to anything at all. He's heard people try to describe her with words like amazing and beautiful and beyond anything we could ever have hoped for. She is all those things and more (breathtaking, fickle, deadly), but the fact is she weirds Ben out. He doesn't mention it anymore, but late at night when they're patrolling the city, even in broad daylight sometimes, the back of his neck prickles and it feels like he's not alone. He's whirled around enough times for the guys to never miss an opportunity to make fun of him for it.

He reaches the infirmary. The lights are turned down low as he makes his way across the main treatment area. For once none of the beds in here are occupied, and that's a lesser miracle given that the Pegasus galaxy is trying to kill all of them pretty much on a daily basis. As he passes, he catches a glimpse of a sleeping McKay in one of the more private areas, half hidden behind privacy screens. The head end of his bed has been elevated slightly, and his skin is pale against the rusty red of the hospital gown. His left arm lies heavily bandaged on top of the blanket.

The mission to M2M-whatever earlier that day had been a joint venture between their team and Sheppard's, and from beginning to end it had been a disappointment: none of the technology that intel had hinted at had been found, the villagers had refused to have anything to do with them, and a persistent, cold rain had fallen from the moment they stepped through the gate.

They'd been soaked to the bone, making their way up a ridge on an almost overgrown trail when Ben suddenly had found himself flat on his back on the stony ground. He remembers cold water seeping through his BDUs and rain drops materializing from the patch of ragged gray sky he could see between the massive pine trees above. Then there had been shouting. Strangely muted and far away. The shots, on the other hand, that had been fired a few seconds later, were very close, and then Lorne had hauled him up by the front of his vest and dragged him to cover.

He’d bled like a stuck pig – a rock hurled at your head will do that - but the wound was shallow and in the end it had needed only three stitches. McKay had fared worse. When Ben's vision had cleared, the chief scientist had had been flanked by Teyla, Renzie, and a pale-looking Parrish.

McKay had been covered in mud, and he'd been pressing his left arm to his side, hunched over a little. For a moment Ben thought he'd simply fallen or taken a punch to his ribs in the skirmish. Then Renzie had rotated McKay's arm outward and the rapidly expanding darkness soaking the sleeve had given its own testament. When the sleeve had been cut open in one efficient slice of Renzie's knife, there had been a lot of blood - a lot - running down McKay's arm, painting crimson streaks through the mud before falling from his lax fingers. Even from a distance, he could see the ground changing color.

Ben isn't a doctor, but basic medical training is mandatory, and he knows a punctured brachial artery can bleed a person dry in ten minutes. From the look on McKay's face when Renzie coaxed him down first to sitting and then to a horizontal position, he knew it too.

Sheppard and Dex had pushed through the dense vegetation a few seconds later, and Lorne and Renzie and Teyla - already covering the group huddled on the ground around McKay – had canted their weapons away from the duo. Dex had trailed Sheppard, arguing loudly that he should continue to pursue the attackers. Sheppard had wiped the rain from his face and replied in the negative. They had more pressing things to worry about right now. He'd crouched down next to McKay, P90 resting over his knees, and exchanged a few terse words with Renzie before patting McKay's shoulder and saying something with a voice so low that Ben hadn't been able to make out the words. It had probably been a variation of the usual 'don't worry, you'll be okay' spiel.

Sheppard had looked over his shoulder at Ben and Lorne, face grim, as the latter had pressed a thick wad of gauze against Ben's head and wrapped a field bandage around it. Minutes later they had continued their interrupted journey back to the gate, only this time with McKay on a jury-rigged stretcher, carried by Dex, Lorne, Sheppard, and Renzie. Ben could walk in a straight line at this point, and he had taken point again, while Teyla had covered the rear. Parrish had hurried alongside the stretcher, stumbling and slipping on the uneven ground as he maintained pressure on the wound and held McKay's arm elevated.

McKay had been whisked away as soon as their muddy boots hit the floor in the gate room. Ben had been escorted at a slightly more sedate pace to the infirmary where he'd gotten his three stitches and been told to make himself comfortable for a few hours.

Lorne had flopped down in the chair next to Ben some time later, and had given him a review of the debriefing. The ragtag villagers had seen McKay work the PDA and life signs detector, and apparently that had been what they wanted to get their hands on. What they got was a crash course in the effect of bullets through various parts of a body.

Teyla had appeared in the door leading out into the northern hallway a while later, then Dex, both of them showered and changed. Sheppard had appeared just as Lorne left. He’d stopped by Ben's bed, joked about the merits of having a thick head, but there had been tension behind the grin, and he had soon joined his team in the deserted corner of the infirmary where they had settled in to wait.

The loss of blood had been serious but the knife hadn't caused any nerve damage and an hour and a half later McKay was resting comfortably in the recovery room. No visitors were allowed to see him yet, Beckett had informed them. He needed to rest. There had been no protests. Teyla had simply claimed an empty bed in the treatment area outside, Dex had commandeered a spot on the floor, and Sheppard had slouched deeper in his seat, hands clasped loosely over his stomach and boots propped up on the chair Teyla had abandoned.

Before going off his shift, Beckett had looked Ben over one last time and discharged him with a handful of pills and orders to get something to eat and then go straight to his quarters and rest. And that's exactly what Ben had done. But that was then, and this is now, and the damn pills are helping absolutely not at all.

Dr. Linden looks up as Ben knocks lightly on the door frame of the office. A few cursory checks later (Follow my finger. What date is it? Any nausea?) and he's downing something she warns will make him a little woozy. He doesn't mind woozy right now, as long as the bass beat of pain inside his head becomes a little more bearable. He inquires about McKay. Sleeping like a baby, she says. Then she leans in closer, conspiringly. He's so much more agreeable like this, she whispers and grins. Ben shares the grin, because yeah, he knows exactly what she means.

She's got a pretty smile, and he lingers a moment, asking about the book she put aside when he arrived. She holds the cover up for him to see. It's a paperback, worn and dog eared, and he doesn't recognize the title. He suspects it's been going from hand to hand ever since it arrived with the Daedalus. New books are hard currency in some circles in Atlantis, almost as much as booze is in others.

He can't think about anything else to say so he thanks her for the pills. She gives him another smile. On his way back past the empty beds, he glances over at McKay again and in the cracks between the privacy screens he sees motion in the semi-darkness. Ben is expecting a nurse, so when he sees Sheppard settling down in the chair next to the bed, his back halfway turned to Ben and the infirmary, Ben's a little surprised. He watches Sheppard run his hands through his hair before placing his elbows on his knees and dropping his head low between his shoulders.

Sheppard is like no commanding officer Ben's has ever had. He's never served directly under O'Neill, but that's pretty much the only person that he can think of that comes even close. The legendary ex-leader of SG-1 is just as laid-back, just as easy going, just as dryly sarcastic as Sheppard, only without that distance thing going, and without that disconcerting quality that allows the ranking military officer of Atlantis to go from grinning and joking to the baddest MF in the valley in less than a heartbeat.

Ben has only seen that transformation once, and yes, granted, it was a pretty damn bad mission, but he can't help but think about another John he knew, seventeen years ago in a galaxy far, far away. Sheppard isn't talking to shadows (although it almost seems he is talking to the city when he wanders the hallways at night, fingertips skimming the smooth walls), he isn't raving mad, he isn't chewing Lithium and Thorazine and god knows what, so that’s probably an unfair comparison.

Let's go, Ben has head Sheppard say when they're out there and it's time to wrap things up and head back to the gate. Let's go home. And that's just another piece of the puzzle that Ben can't get his head around, because home to him will always be the Milky Way and Earth and the US and Renville, MN, with his dad's rusty old pickup trucks in the driveway and the corn fields out back, scarred by narrow dirt roads.

Despite this, Ben hasn't been back since his sister's funeral. Nine years in the corps, five of those with the stargate program, and he's seen more action than he cares to remember. So he’s got the experience, but he also has the Ancient gene. The former is what makes him a good addition to any team, but it's the latter that is the reason he's here, in Atlantis. He harbors no illusions about that. He can open doors and turn on and off lights, but he's hardly a natural, not like Sheppard, whose eyes sometimes go distant and unfocused, like he's listening to something no one else can hear. Ben sometimes wonders if the unease that skitters under his skin in this place is the unrecognizable echo of whatever it is Sheppard is reacting to; only so faint that Ben isn't registering it on a conscious level.

Movement makes his attention snap back to McKay’s bed. Half-shielded by the privacy screens, Sheppard lets his forehead come to rest against the side rails of the bed. Tiredness bleeds from his body and Ben can easily imagine that his eyes are closed, that he's taking a moment to regroup and refocus. Having a team member injured is hard on everyone, but maybe more so on the team leader.

Sheppard's hand comes up like he's about to grip the rails. But it sidles past the metal bars and Ben watches it hovers a moment over the IV line taped to the back of McKay's hand. Eventually it settles on the mattress next to McKay's fingertips. Despite the lack of touch, the gesture somehow seems deeply intimate, and Ben glances over his shoulder, towards the office, but Linden is once again deeply engulfed in her book.

When he looks back again, he catches the tail-end of McKay slowly turning his hand palm-up. McKay's eyes are slitted open a fraction now, and there's a hint of movement to his lips. Sheppard must have answered, because McKay's mouth twists in a tired, watered out version of his usual sarcastic grin.

He wiggles the fingers lying next to Sheppard's, his index finger splayed awkwardly from the oxymeter clipped to the finger. Sheppard doesn't move at first, then after a moment of hesitation, his hand slides slowly across the sheet and McKay wraps his outer three fingers around Sheppard's, his eyes closing again.

Sheppard's forehead stays pressed against the bedrail.

Ben backs away and leaves the infirmary as quietly as he can. This is something he’s not supposed to see, something no one here is supposed to see.

He stops outside the door. Sheppard and McKay. Wow. How the hell did that happen?

"You're Bachman."

Ben's head snaps up and around, wincing as the headaches spikes again.

Dex is doing a perfect Sheppard impersonation, lounging lazily against the wall further down the hall. Ben levels his gaze with Dex's and refuses to be stared down, but shit, he can feel his back knotting up just looking at the way the other man is toying with that big-ass knife of his.

"Yeah," Ben answers. "And you're Dex, right?" He knows who Ronon Dex is, of course he does, who the hell doesn't? The guy took on three marines by himself, had them on their backs in four seconds flat.

Dex’s face is obscured by the dreads falling down both sides of it when he looks down at the knife he's casually turning over and over in his hand. "What were you doing?" He looks up and nods towards the infirmary door. "In there."

Ben points at the Band-Aid on his forehead. "Headache," is all he says, because he's tired and he really doesn't owe Dex any explanations.

Dex pushes away from the wall. Ben is not a small guy, but shit, the man is absolutely huge.

"See anything interesting?" Dex asks.

"I, uh," Ben says and stops, because fuck, does Dex know about Sheppard and McKay? It seems like he does, but Ben can't be sure. If says the wrong thing, there could be repercussions for both Sheppard and McKay. And while Ben really doesn't like McKay all that much, the guy regularly saves their collective asses, and that counts for something.

Dex apparently reads something unwanted into his hesitation, because the brief of flash of teeth is a dangerous, bastardized version of a smile. "Wrong answer," he says, and Ben feels like taking a step back from the laid-back threat that is radiating from him. "Try again."

Ben shakes his head. "No, I didn’t see anything. Nothing worth mentioning, anyway."

Dex smiles again, and there's still a hint of threat in it. "Good answer."

They both turn their head towards the soft sound of steps approaching from the labs. A few seconds later Chang and Tennant turn the corner. They're in full gear, and their hands rest comfortably on their weapons. Night patrol.

"Everything all right here?" Chang asks neutrally, but his eyes narrow slightly as he looks from Ben to Dex and back again.

"Yeah, fine, everything's fine," Ben assures him. "I was just raiding Beckett's medicine cabinet for something stronger than Advil."

Chang turns to Dex, who just stares blankly back at him. When Chang realizes no answer will be forthcoming, he turns back to Ben, who shrugs. Chang rolls his eyes and continues down the hall.

Tennant sidles past Dex, nodding towards Ben's head in passing. "How many stitches?"

"Three."

"Wuss," he calls back over his shoulder.

Ben flips him off. When he turns around, Dex is striding away in the opposite direction. Ben waits until he's about to turn the corner before calling out. "Hey?"

Dex doesn't slow, doesn't show any sign of even having heard him.

Ben glances back to make sure Chang and Tennant are out of earshot. They are, but he still lowers his voice. "You know that thing in there? The uninteresting one?"

That makes Dex stops. He turns slowly. Ben knows he's playing a dangerous game here, but he can't help the wry grin. "Chill, Dex. I just…" He waves his hand in the air and tries to formulate the questions in his head. Questions like ‘when’ and ‘how’, but his curiosity derails when he realizes that the difference between himself and a gossiping teenage girl right now is a lot smaller than he is comfortable with. "Never mind," he says and drops his hand. "It's not important."

Dex nods. "And don't you forget it." Then he's gone.

On his way back, Ben stops by the mess hall and snags a stale muffin and a piece of the bluish fruit that tastes almost like a banana. Back in his quarters, the watch next to his bed says 2:52 AM. He washes down the muffin with a bottle of water and saves the almost-banana for the morning.

He lies down. The painkillers are kicking in for real now, and wow, yeah, Linden wasn't kidding about woozy. He spreads his arms as wide as the narrow bed allows him. He's tired and strung out and his mind makes weird, disjointed leaps from this to that, but it keeps returning to his CO and Atlantis' acerbic chief of science, and to the fact that Dex apparently has appointed himself protector of their secrets.

There are a few things that make more sense to Ben now, and lots more that absolutely don't, but his thoughts are so muddled from the drugs that he soon gives up trying to sort them out.

~ The End ~

[View factor F_AB_ is defined as the fraction of thermal energy leaving surface _A_ that is incident on surface _B_]


End file.
